The Meanings of Muslim Mysticism: An Introduction to Classical Sufi Texts

Between the eighth and tenth century, a series of profound texts were written in Arabic that explored the deepest, darkest and ultimately the most brightly illuminated corners of the human psyche.  Their authors were the founding figures of the Islamic mystical tradition known as Sufism. But inasmuch as these teachers were mystics, whose prayers and spiritual exercises had yielded extraordinary inner experiences, they were also psychologists whose writings laid bare the both the delights and delusions of the human personality, and the path to its perfection by the annihilation of the ego. Yet in order to share their experiences, and the lessons that were the fruit of them, the Sufis needed to wrestle with another set of issues: the problem of language. And so, after explaining the key terms and concepts of classical Sufism, in this episode we’ll learn how the early Sufi masters tackled the problem of translating mystical experiences into language that ordinary people could understand. Then, turning to our own times, we’ll examine how those Arabic texts can be made comprehensible in English. Fortunately, we’re joined in Akbar’s Chamber by Michael Sells, who has devoted his career to translating classical Arabic and especially Sufi texts. He is the author and translator of Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Qur’an, Mi‘raj, Poetic and Theological Writings (Paulist Press, 1996).